a warm reminder that he was dreaming—right?
Was he dreaming about the comfort, the kindness, the lover in his bed that he’d dreamed about for years?
Or was Lachlan the reality, and the flock of black birds storming him, screaming as they pecked at his flesh—was that the dream? They were coming for him—no! They were coming through him, trying to get to Lachlan, who had fallen down behind him, and Bartholomew was waving his arms, kicking, shrieking, knocking them aside, because they were hurting him, oh God, they were hurting him, and Bartholomew was just a scrawny IT guy, a meek hedge witch, a wannabe baker, and how could he fight off the madness of crows?
“You can’t have him!” He sat up, throat raw with the cry, Lachlan’s warm body the only thing keeping him on the bed.
“Hey, hey, hey… Tolly, calm down. What’s wrong? Those are some serious closet monsters, yeah?”
Bartholomew fell back into bed, sweating and shaking. “That’s a nightmare?” he gasped.
“I hope so,” Lachlan said, softly smoothing hair back from his forehead. “Do you have those often?”
“Never.” Bartholomew panted. “I have perfectly boring predictable dreams about baking wedding cakes and my office sprouting iron bars while I wander around wondering where I put my key.” And your house, and a wedding in the shape of a pentagram, with all of my friends dressed in white.
Lachlan snorted softly. “Yikes, Tolly. Seriously, we need to find a way to get you to quit your job.”
Bartholomew yawned and peered at his window, wondering if the sky was beginning to lighten. A crow pecked at the glass, and he emitted a soft shriek and buried his face against Lachlan’s stomach. “Too soon!” he mumbled. “What time is it?”
“About ten minutes before we set our alarm for.” Lachlan’s hands—big and rough and wonderful—rubbed his bare back, and he realized he’d slept naked the night before, Lachlan’s scent, his come, still marking his skin.
“Mm….” Bartholomew undulated against him, liking the way Lachlan’s body felt next to his own, muscles, hairy thighs and chest, everything. Now that he wasn’t terrified, his body was doing a happy dance, because hey, there was a man in his bed, and wasn’t that new and exciting. He locked his lips around an already puffy, sensitized nipple and sucked, liking Lachlan’s gasp and strangled chuckle.
“Tolly?”
“Hit snooze,” Bartholomew said, brazen and happy and not caring.
“Yeah, sure—oh, hey, you’re heading south!” Lachlan didn’t even make it to grab his phone.
He tasted a little like soap and a little like come, but Bartholomew didn’t care. He’d discovered a new favorite thing to do in the morning when he woke up. Judging by the happy catch of breath and the hot taste of precome he spurted almost immediately, Lachlan was also a fan.
IT was a great way to start a morning—even if the alarm never did go off and they were both moving a lot later than they’d planned. But as they dressed and then loaded the van, it wasn’t just the late start that had Bartholomew nervous and on edge. The sun wasn’t quite peeking over the horizon, but he remembered Jordan’s words about needing to perform the protection ceremony at dawn and dusk every day until this crisis was over.
He turned to Lachlan, who had brought another box out of the garage and tucked it into the van, and said, “I should wake Jordan. I was going to let them sleep in for a while, but I don’t want to have to worry about shit getting… well, weirder again, you know?”
They looked around dubiously. No more snakes in trees, thank Goddess, but the squirrels had all fallen asleep in formation and were curled into individual balls in a figure eight from tree to tree. The night before they’d made way for the vehicles and then reformed after the spell, but apparently they took time off to sleep.
Good to know.
The starlings were still gone, the turkeys were sleeping in as a jury, heads tucked against their shoulders, and the cats were apparently splitting the shifts. Most of them were asleep in a little pile in the center of the tiny cottage yard, but Bartholomew’s favorite, a battered ginger tom, and a scrawny, feral calico mama cat stood nonchalantly licking their paws but also keeping an eye on the neighborhood as a whole.
The sky grew a little grayer, and Bartholomew hesitated. He knew this part of himself, the part that didn’t want to be a bother. The part that was used to letting other